you spin me round

Last time we went to the park, the girls brought a huge backpack of stuffed animals. They’re so funny.

I just finished reading the *best* book. Water For Elephants. I think I might just read it again before I go on to something else. It took me most of the week to get half way through it, but tonight both John and Willow were asleep by 9, so I sat up in the bottom bunk of the girls’ bed (the three big kids are at their dad’s) and read until I finished. How novel. (sorry. couldn’t help it)

Today the air both smelled and felt (temperature-wise) just the right way to hurl me back in time twenty years. I was walking across a parking lot, when suddenly I was kind of spun and expecting to see my old high school around me when I looked up. Just for a fraction of a second. The moment was so fast that the full memory that was being teased didn’t surface. I had that feeling like when you’ve woken from a complex dream: one minute it’s all there and you don’t think it’ll ever slip away, but the next you’ve no idea what it was about. Before it’s entirely gone, you might get a little whisp of something, but focusing on it only makes it evaporate.

This morning I remembered that Sophie was supposed to go to school in her class t-shirt. Really I remembered last night, and so I got it from the closet and hooked the hanger onto her dresser handle so we wouldn’t forget in our jumbled morning rush. She went to school in her class shirt, a pair of pants, a skirt over that, and a ponytail with blue and green colored-hairspray streaks. As I was getting her dressed, I was thinking about how glad I was to remember the shirt. It’s like all the things I’m supposed to keep up with — when to bring back the library books, what day to take snack, permission slips, mismatched sock day, bring an apple for the apple doll project, and on and on and on — are tests of my competence. Whenever I remember to send the kids to school with what they’re supposed to have, I feel like I’m passing some kind of test.

Hmm. I just took an internet detour and signed up on my high school alumni webpage. This ought to be interesting. . .